PHOENIX – If Kamala Harris bags the battleground state of Arizona, it will be because of people such as Carol.
A retired nurse and registered Republican, the 72 year-old’s face takes on a look of horror at the mention of Donald Trump.
“He’s a liar and a cheat,” she said, heading into a supermarket in Phoenix on a day when it feels the Arizona sun could fry an egg on the sidewalks of this sprawling city.
There is no way she will be voting for him, said Carol, who asked to use only her first name. Her vote – and that of her husband, who has gone as far as to register as a member of the Democratic Party – is going to Kamala Harris and her running mate, Tim Waltz.
But if Trump manages to win the state and its eleven electoral college votes, it will be in no small part to the likes of Dwayne Smith, 81, a former police officer who, for the first time in his life, is knocking on doors and urging people to vote Republican.
He and his wife, Christa, 61, are as motivated to secure a win for Trump as Carol is to prevent it.
“I thought rather than sitting at home complaining, I could come and do something to help,” said Mr Smith, as he attended a volunteers’ training session run by Republican Party staff.
Arizona’s status as a battleground state ought to come with an official stamp. It was won with some ease by Trump in 2016, but Joe Biden seized it back in 2020 by just 10, 452 votes, the first Democrat to do so since Bill Clinton in 1996.
This week, just seven weeks until until election day on 5 November, a national polling average by the New York Times puts Harris three points ahead of Trump nationally, while he is two points in front in Arizona, sometimes known as “the Grand Canyon State”. A New York Times/Siena College poll, however, put Trump five points ahead in Arizona, no doubt triggering some small panic in the campaign of the vice president, who is set to hold a rally in Arizona later this week.
They are tied in North Carolina and Nevada, while she has a narrow lead in Pennsylvania. Michigan and Wisconsin. Trump is two points ahead in Georgia.
Political scientists say Arizona is that rare thing in the United States, neither solidly red or blue. Its governor and two senators are Democrats, but six of its nine members of Congress are Republican. Republicans control both chambers of the local legislature.
“I would describe Arizona as purple,” said Professor Lisa Sanchez, of the University of Arizona, based in Tucson. “There are a mix of political officials in the state.”
While some areas are solidly red, a veteran Democrat, 76-year-old Raul Grijalva, has held his seat since 2003.
“The rest of the state is best described as light red-leaning Republican, but not a foregone conclusion for Democrats either,” Professor Sanchez added.
The “either side can win” nature of the race has created an enormous sense of determination and energy in Arizona, with big sums of money pouring in.
Whereas just a few months ago polls showed voters were bored at the prospect of a rematch between Biden and Harris, there is a genuine buzz as election day approaches.
The emotions on display are often a striking mixture of fear and optimism, a realisation that there is so much to both win or lose, depending on which side comes out ahead.
Trump’s opponents say he has already made clear what is the top of his list of priorities if he wins – overseeing the mass deportation of millions of undocumented residents.
That is something that triggers fear for many in the state that shares a 370-mile border with Mexico, and where 20 per cent of residents are Latino. What guarantee is there the early morning raids orchestrated by Trump and immigration czar, Stephen Miller, would not round up people who have the legal right to be here, splitting up families and tearing apart communities, they ask.
There is also concern a second Trump term would further limit access to reproductive rights, and set in place other policies outlined in his conservative Project 25 playbook.
Mixed in with all of this is the fact that many Democrats are optimistic that having Harris on the top of the ticket instead of Biden, they can beat Trump in November.
Kitty Spradlin, 66, is a swing voter who goes for whoever she thinks would do the “best job”. Her first vote was for Ronald Reagan, and she later voted for the Bushes, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.
This year she is voting for Harris and believes she will win.
There is no way she will vote for Trump, a “boisterous asshole” when he first ran in 2016, and was now convicted of 34 felonies and found guilty of sexual assault in a civil trial.
Ms Spradlin said, as with many US families, the phenomenon of Donald Trump and his brash populism had split her’s.
A sister supports the “Hiter-wannabe”. Does that mean they have agreed to avoid talking about politics?
“No, I just don’t talk to her,” she said. “He’s a creep who doesn’t deserve to be president.”
On the other side, Trump loyalists denounce Harris as a “Marxist” who would mark the end of America, despite nothing in her record substantiating that.
They grumble about the state of the economy and the record number of undocumented immigration that very often starts at the US-Mexico border about 180 miles south of Phoenix, that has seen thousands of migrants bussed to cities such as New York and Chicago, often overburdening services.
One supporter, 79 year-old Mickie Rustad, claims she is so anxious about the prospect of Harris winning in November she is unable to sleep.
“Hillary Clinton was a choir girl by comparison,” she said of Harris, seated with her husband, Gary, at an event for Trump-backed Senate hopeful Kari Lake.
One evening, i got an insight into where such conspiracy-laced ideas get planted – 40 miles south of Phoenix through the desert to Maricopa, past the turn-off for the Gila Indian Reservation, where two Trump “surrogates” addressed voters.
Chad Wolf, a former acting secretary of Homeland Security for Trump, and Monica Crowley, a former Fox News anchor who also worked in his administration, talked to about 100 people about what they term an existential threat if the former president is not given a second term.
Wolf kicked things off by talking about problems at the border that he claimed Biden and Harris have left “wide open”.
The vast majority of people in the room were wearing Trump shirts or Maga hats. But one man shouted a question from the rear asking why Trump killed a bipartisan border security bill worked on by both parties, so that he could use to to attack Biden.
There were grumbles and hisses and the man was escorted out by two security guards.
“All this is being done by design to send the United States over the tipping point,” claimed Crowley. “This is the end game of those who seek the destruction of the country”.
All of this is said without pause or question from the audience. Rather she received nods and cheers.
She later claimed the economy that had been booming was disrupted “when globalists sprung the Covid virus on the world to shut down the global economy in order to shut down the roaring Trump economy”.
At the end of the event, there was a chance for the media to speak to the pair of speakers. i asked the question that got the man at the back of the room kicked out – why had Trump stamped on the deal many conservative Republicans worked on?
“I took a look at it from an operational perspective… and the bill would not have done anything it said it did,” claimed Wolf. “That’s also what President Trump saw.”
On the drive back to Phoenix the moon is a pale yellow and appeared to be so low it was almost siting on the desert floor.
Polls suggest for most voters the issue of the economy remains the most important topic. For Republicans, immigration is another top priority, while for Democrats it is healthcare and issues of personal freedom.
Support for Trump solidified after the party’s convention, held just two days after he survived a dramatic assassination attempt at a campaign rally on live television.
Two months later, Trump was on his own private golf course when a Secret Service agent spotted a rifle barrel pointing through the fence. On this instance they were able to disrupt the suspected gunman before he could fire a shot.
The replacement of Harris as the candidate has utterly energised the Democratic campaign and with benefit of a short campaign, she is trying to carry the positive “vibes” to election day and into the Oval Office.
All of this has resulted in massive effort by both parties to ensure they register as many voters as possible before election, and win over people who may still be undecided.
“Vote early, don’t drop it in on election day,” Arizona Republican Party chair Gina Swoboda tells a group of volunteers of the advice she wants to to pass on.
Democratic leaders are equally forceful about the need to appeal to as many people as possible.
Speaking at a press conference over the weekend, Patty Contreras, a state legislator, says: “The stakes for Arizonans this year could not be greater.
